The Hill of Venus 23Book the Fourth · An Interlude
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Literature · Historical Fiction
The Hill of Venus 23
Book the Fourth · An Interlude
GallizierEnglish
Meantime, the atmosphere of this secular court was not distasteful to Francesco. The love of poetry and the arts which had made Naples in the twelfth century the literary centre of Europe, still lingered; and he found pleasant intercourse on lines along which he had long been lonely.
Of Ilaria he saw little. She carried herself with a strange, new dignity and seemed to avoid him even more sedulously than he had planned to avoid her. He heard her spoken of as among the chief beauties of the court. The Regent, it was said, had shown her marks of especial favor, the more noteworthy as the Frangipani were on the side of the empire, fighting against Clement and Charles of Anjou. But his only opportunity of seeing her was at the court functions, which it was his duty to attend. To men of Francesco's temperament the absent has a more constraining force than the present; the dream-Ilaria, with her wavering smile, had borne, it would seem, more intimate relations to his life than the woman he watched from afar. But his restlessness increased with the certainty that Ilaria avoided him; a circumstance their meeting had not led him to fear.
Thus a week dragged on.
The African wind, which carries with it clouds of hot sand from the depths of the Sahara, was raging in the upper regions of the air. On earth there was still absolute calm. The leaves of the palm and the branches of the mimosa hung motionless; the sea alone was agitated. Huge, formless ridges swelled up here and there, dashing themselves against the shore. The west was shrouded in dense gloom, and the sun, in the metallic, cloudless haze, was seen dimly, as through a smoked opal.
The Castello of Astura in the distant plains of Torre del Greco shone white against the black smoke that rose from Vesuvius as from some mighty furnace, spreading out in the shape of a long cloud from Castellamare to Posilippo. For weeks the mountain had displayed a sinister activity, and at night the red fires were visible far away, over land and sea, like the glow of some great subterranean furnace. The peaceful altar of the gods had been transformed into the terrible torch of the Eumenides.
There were dire forebodings of coming disaster in the air and in the winds. At Torre del Greco penitential processions made the rounds of the sun-baked streets, with lighted candles, subdued chanting and loud sobbing. In Resina and Portici dull terror reigned. And the glare of the August sun had become almost insufferable, as it fell full over the waters to the pencilled line of the southern horizon, where a long circle divided the misty, shimmering dove-color of the Tyrrhene Sea from the hazy skies.
Then, like the knell of doom, the tidings of the fatal battle of Tagliacozzo were wafted to Naples. Conradino's army had been utterly routed. Charles of Anjou was the victor of the day.
The fate of the Swabian youth and that of his companions was still a matter of surmise. They had fled from the battle-field. No one knew the direction of their flight.
And for days Francesco went about as one dazed. The Neapolitans laughed his exhortations to scorn, and seemed to invite the interdict rather than to submit to the Vulture of Provence.
He was ruminating over the situation, wishing for some inspiration, wishing for Ilaria, and noting idly how the soft siesta lights played upon the sea, when Francesco perceived a little pleasure barque skirting the coast, and heading apparently for his favorite spot,--where he had met Ilaria on coming to Naples. As the breeze impelled it nearer, music floated over the waters. A few moments, and he descried within the boat three of the most charming of the younger women of the court, with their attendant cavaliers. He eyed the little boat longingly, as it approached like some swift sprite of the sea. It was at hand now, moored to the tiny wharf, and one of the women called out gaily:
"Messer Eremito, we have found your cell!"
"And like many hermits," laughed Stefano Maconi, "he appears to welcome the intrusion."
"To be welcomed by Messer Francesco," suggested another, "we should be on the barque which Charon is rowing across the Styx."
Francesco found his tongue at last.
"Beauty should always have precedence over departed souls," he said with a smile. "Is it your pleasure to land and to enliven this solitude?"
"No, but to lure you out upon the waters," said the woman who had spoken.
Francesco, carried away by the spirit of the moment, ran down the marble steps of the terrace and leaped lightly into the boat.
"Violetta made a wager that you would not come,--Petronella that you would," said a third. "As for myself--I was neutral. But my fears were with Violetta."
As the sun sank lower, the wind dropped, and the men bent singing to their oars.
"We were playing a game, Messere," said the Countess Violetta. "We are trying to decide who is the fairest lady of this court, exclusive, of course,--of us three. If we can agree, we shall plan a surprise for that most lovely one!"
"My vote," said Messer Romano Vivaldi, "is for Madonna Ghisola. The dusk of her hair is as soft as that of the thickest smoke of Vesuvius, and, as in the smoke, there are red reflections in it!"
"Beware of the volcano," laughed Petronella. "A merry beauty for me," she improvised, speaking half verse, half prose like the others. "Rose-white as asphodel blossom, and fragrant as the cyclamen of the hills. What say you to the Contessa Leonora? Who can hear her laugh without remembering what some one has said: 'Laughter is the radiance of the soul?'"
"To my mind," said one of the cavaliers, who had not yet spoken, "the Countess Ilaria Frangipani is the fairest woman of the court."
The eyes of Stefano Maconi flashed emphatic assent.
"She is too sad," objected Violetta, who was the youngest of the party.
"So was the sea beneath the clouds of dawn," said the cavalier. "It sighed of sorrows without end. The clouds melted, and the gray waters brightened to turquoise, but whether under clouds or sun, the sea is a mystery."
"She has the grace of the swaying wave," assented Petronella.
"And its light in her eyes," added Camilla.
"The lady is fair," acknowledged Messer Romano, "but too unapproachable for me!"
Startled, Francesco saw, or fancied he saw, a complacent smile flit across the countenance of Stefano Maconi.
"What thinks Messer Francesco of her beauty?" asked
Violetta. "I believe that each new age sees men and women fairer than the last."
"I think, that cannot be," said the Countess Petronella, naively. "Was never woman so fair as Madama Elena of Troy, and she lived before the coming of our Saviour."
"I agree with Madonna Violetta," said Francesco dreamily. "Gazing at Madonna Ilaria I think there is come into the world something strange and new, revealed to us to our joy and our undoing!"
The sun had set. The boatmen were singing together.
"Non senti mai Achille,
Per Pulisena bella,
Le cocenti faville
Quant' io senti per quella.
"Udendo sua favella
Angelica e venozza,
Parlar si amorosa
In su la fresca erbetta."
"The beauty of this coast," said Francesco, speaking low, "is as the beauty of woman. It transcends all I have imagined, yet is it ever alien. I have felt it in Rome, but not so strongly. In Umbria, in Tuscany all is more pure, more distant, yet more clear. The eye is drawn afar to where earth meets sky; here it seeks to draw all to itself. It is a beauty unhallowed: The triumph of the Pagan World!"
"Is there a city in Italy more Catholic than Naples?" protested Violetta, while the others joined in a chorus of protestation.
"Where in Europe shall you find more priests?" asked Stefano Maconi, shrugging his shoulders. "Where shall you find more churches?"
Francesco had been musing. Now the spirit of contradiction was upon him.
"Even in your churches," he said suddenly, turning to Camilla, "I find something strange. They are sumptuous indeed; yet there steals over me a fearsome feeling, as if the worship were given not to the Deity that is, but to deities long dead,--or worse than dead!"
A slight shudder ran over one or two of the hearers; the boatmen were singing softly.
The stars were out, the boat was nearing the shore. And still the boatmen were singing, as the moon shed her spectral light over the crooning, murmuring waves.
"We are all agreed, are we not, that the Countess Ilaria Frangipani is the fairest?" asked Camilla, as they prepared to land.
"Allow me," said Stefano Maconi, "to be responsible for the proposed surprise. It shall, with your pleasure, take the form of a Festa in the groves of Circe!"
"It will be fair weather to-morrow!" said Violetta. "We shall all be there!"
After they had departed Francesco passed swiftly to and fro along the terrace.
Strange feelings were at work within him. Love, hatred, jealousy were contending for the mastery. He hated the oily cavalier with the smooth, pleasant temper; he hated the man who dared aspire to Ilaria's love. To Raniero he gave not even a thought. He had never felt jealous of the Frangipani. But now Ilaria's name was on the wind! The sea shouted it; the flowers exhaled it. It floated on the night-air; the moon and the stars seemed to whisper it. Ilaria! Ilaria! He was once more abandoned to the older gods!
"I shall not be there!" he murmured to himself, thinking of the Festa. Yet, when the morning came, he was among the first to arrive.
